First Lines: The Sorceress

Just five days ago Josh and Sophie Newman were leading their perfectly ordinary lives. Then they were revealed to be the Twins of Legend and were sucked into an ancient battle to restore the mythical Elders to their rightful place as rulers of Earth. Basically, Everything Has Changed ™. We catch up with them in London, where they hope to find the Ancient of Days, the quite mad king Gilgamesh, who could teach them the Magic of Water. Of course, they’re being chased by a new horde of mythical scum and make a narrow escape, aided by some new, legendaryfriends. Meanwhile, the novel’s namesake is trapped on Alcatraz, along with creatures which are said only to exist in mankind’s worst nightmares …

Just like the two previousbooks, The Sorceress is a blast. It takes myth and magic, and mixes it up at a breakneck speed. Indeed, as I said before, it’s a lot like The DaVinci Code, only not as dumb and actually a very good read. And besides, how could I not like a book where a immortal human gets Clarke’s Third Law—any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic—thrown in its face?

The Necromancer (Book Four of the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) is scheduled for May 2010.

Michael Scott — The Sorceress (Book Three of the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)